Purity

There’s still no word on whether British actor Daniel Craig will reprise the role of James Bond in future installments of the film franchise, but Showtime has already lined up the 48-year old’s next high-profile project: Craig will make his TV series debut in the U.S. with Purity, a “morally complex story of youthful idealism, extreme loyalty and cold-blooded murder,” the network announced Wednesday.

When European villagers were first telling each other the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” centuries ago, a wolf in the forest probably was their biggest fear. Now, though, we have different concerns. So who better to update this timeless tale for our current times than one of America’s foremost modern novelists, Jonathan Franzen?

A new Jonathan Franzen novel arrives only every five or 10 years, and when it does it feels like a banquet. His books are almost always centered on familial entanglements and identity, but they’re never just that: There are brilliant stand-alone chapters to devour, detours to savor, bitter little scraps to nibble and spit out. His latest is no exception: The title nominally belongs to Purity “Pip” Tyler, a 23-year-old adrift in postcollege malaise, shacked up in an anarchist squat in Oakland and bringing home a paycheck that can’t begin to chip away at her student loans.